Co-Founder Taliferro
My Journey to Removing Old Blog Pages from Google Search
Keeping a website clean matters more than most people realize. Not just visually, but structurally. Over time, content moves, strategies change, and pages that once made sense no longer belong where they started. When that happens, those old URLs don’t just disappear on their own. Google keeps looking for them.
That’s the problem I ran into. I moved parts of my blog to a new structure, but Google kept crawling and surfacing pages that were no longer relevant. I needed a reliable way to tell search engines: “These pages are gone. Stop checking for them.”
How Do You Remove Old Pages from Google Search?
You remove old pages from Google by sending a clear signal. That means returning the right HTTP status codes, using redirects only when content actually moved, updating your sitemap to list only valid URLs, and then letting Search Console do its job. Blocking pages alone doesn’t solve the problem. You have to be explicit.
Attempt 1: Returning a 404
My first move was the obvious one: return a 404. The thinking was simple. If Google hits a page and it doesn’t exist, eventually it should drop it from the index.
That worked sometimes. But not consistently.
Some URLs disappeared. Others stuck around longer than they should have. Google didn’t treat all 404s the same, and I realized pretty quickly that “not found” doesn’t always mean “gone for good” in Google’s eyes.
Attempt 2: Blocking the Directory with robots.txt
Next, I blocked the directory entirely using robots.txt. The idea was to stop crawlers from even accessing the old paths.
That did exactly what it was supposed to do — it stopped crawling. But it didn’t remove the URLs from the index.
This is an important distinction. robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing. If a page is already indexed, blocking it can actually make cleanup harder because Google can no longer re-crawl the page to see an updated status.
The Quirk with Search Console
At this point, Search Console was telling me the pages were blocked, but it wasn’t offering a clean removal path. The URLs were still showing up. Google knew they existed, but didn’t have a definitive signal telling it to forget them.
That’s when it clicked: I wasn’t being clear enough.
Turning to ChatGPT for a Sanity Check
Out of frustration, I asked a simple question: “If a blog moved to a new location, how do I tell Google to stop looking for the old URLs?”
The answer was straightforward and immediately useful: return a 410 Gone.
The Difference Between 404 and 410
A 404 says, “This page isn’t here right now.”
A 410 says, “This page is gone, permanently.”
That distinction matters.
When you return a 410, you’re not leaving room for interpretation. You’re telling search engines that the resource should be removed from the index and not revisited.
Implementing the 410 Status Code
I configured the server to return a 410 for each old blog URL that no longer had a replacement.
HTTP/1.1 410 GoneNo redirects. No blocked crawling. Just a clean, explicit signal.
This was the first approach that actually aligned with what I wanted Google to do.
What This Taught Me
Removing old content isn’t just cleanup work. It’s communication. Google responds best when you’re clear and consistent.
404s are fine when content might come back.
301s are right when content truly moved.
410s are what you use when something is finished and should be forgotten.
Anything less leaves room for confusion.
Conclusion: How to Make Google Forget
If you want Google to stop crawling and indexing old pages, you have to stop being vague. Blocking directories and hoping for the best doesn’t work. Neither does relying on 404s for content that’s permanently gone.
A 410 tells the truth. And search engines respect that.
If your site is cluttered with old URLs, redirects, and duplicate pages, it’s time to clean house. We help teams fix indexing issues, consolidate rankings, and give search engines a clear structure to follow. If that’s something you need, let’s talk.
Tyrone Showers